Being ludicrous is more than just taking risks; it’s stepping outside of our comfort zones and seeing how we respond. It’s testing ourselves and seeing what works and what doesn’t. It means becoming intimately familiar with ourselves, our strengths and weaknesses, and making choices based on what we want to accomplish.

There are a few reasons to attend carefully to the outdoors, but here’s the biggest one: grit, resilience, and critical thinking are all essential to anyone wanting to learn or do anything. Just ask anyone in education or business.

Dear Emma, I started dating the most amazing woman a few months ago. It’s going so well that I feel she’s going to ask me to marry her soon. The problem is that I’m too embarrassed to tell her that my credit is in the toilet. We’re both professional, successful women, but [...]

Dear Emma, What would you do? I have a dear friend, in crisis. I told her that she could call me anytime she needed to talk or to cry on my shoulder. The problem is that she has loads of free time whereas I have a husband, four children, a full-time job and [...]

Our children didn't follow a traditional straight line, and they still don't. In their current lives as fathers, they eschew much of cultural dogma, and stand their ground with definite ideas and principles. We didn't trace a straight line for them, so we couldn't expect them to follow one. Yes, it is hard to leave them be when they face the adult world threshold after high school. One has to let go, take a leap of faith, trust that you have done your best, and hope they figure it out successfully their own.

I could have been highly offended, and justifiably so. Instead, I made a conscious decision not to be. His words, although definitely not seasoned with salt, summed up for me in a nutshell the shared plight of many women over 40. This particularly applies to those of us who, either by choice or by circumstance, remain single. Fostered by a youth-enamored society, the assumption is that rather than being in any way enhanced by age, women are tarnished by it.